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This series has been a mess since Issue 1, but this issue really takes the cake. The Avengers are almost bit characters in their own series. We keep bouncing all over between entire teams we know nothing about while everyone talks in vague dramatic patterns. There's no character work or development; its the comic equivalent to smashing action figures together. Blade has been a completely worthless addition to the cast. He's done nothing and accomplished nothing. Its 3 issues into the Vampire Civil war that came out of nowhere and we still no nothing about it. The villain group has gotten named but no personality, and can apparently go toe-to-toe with the Avengers, but mostly off panel. The worst of it is how it mangles Robbie Reyes. Robbie is my favorite Marvel character, and its clear the author did absolutely no research into him before using him. His powers don't work this way, he's not possessed by the Spirit of Vengeance or 'the Rider', which the writer seems to have made up whole cloth. He didn't have a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on like this issue seems to imply, and he's already MET Johnny Blaze and gotten along with him, so the end of the issue makes even less sense!

A sudden end to a completely pointless arc. The Avengers suddenly beat the vampires, despite not doing anything different than what they were doing. The vampires beat and possibly kill several members of the Winter Guard. Glad we spent so much time with them being pointless dicks. Oh, but it was all a plot by Dracula! He destroyed his home, most of his followers and everyone he cared about for....reasons. Oh, and the whole plot with Ghost Rider gets ignored. Robbie shows up near the end and throws a punch. Then asks Blade to perform an exorcism on his car, which is still not how his powers work. What was the point? There were vampires in places, occasionally killing each other. It never felt like a war, just a bunch of vampires that were apparently super strong and capable of trouncing the Avengers until the plot decided it was time for them to lose. I don't think I could name a single member of their group. This series continues to be comicbook equivalent of a kid smashing action figures together. If that's what you are looking for, great. But there's no reason it can't have some kind of depth to it.

As the end to the first arc of the 3rd(!) relaunch of this series, it looks like there should be another relaunch. At best, its boring, and at worst, its character assassination. The team expanded! But most members barely get a line. Very little character interaction, and a very rushed presentation. What should be a major moment for Nova is almost nonsensical, and makes Sam look like a moron. The worst thing is everything with Miles. Why would anyone think having him make a deal with the devil would be a good thing from a writing perspective? Yes, there are some other circumstances, but still. That is the single worst thing that happened to Peter Parker, to the point that many won't read Spiderman AT ALL after it. Why repeat that with Miles? Its such a hack writing move. The Champions is supposed to be a team of young heroes trying to make a difference in the world while avoiding the mistakes of the older heroes. Instead, they've had generic supervillian fights and "the team will never be the same!" moments. They've barely been a team at all, so why mess with the group dynamic so soon? And why have them make the same mistakes as the adults? That's not interesting or compelling; its depressing. And now we have 2 months of War of the Realms tie-ins, so we can probably add the Mephisto and Nova plots to the abandoned over-arching plot pile. It can join the child slavery ring from Vol 1, the Master and Ultron plots from Vol 2, and the Viv and Riri plot from earlier this run.

Another decent book killed by a mandatory crossover. This issue was largely pointless, and when it wasn't pointless it was frustrating. Like much of War of the Realms it was a shallow superhero slugfest. A big fight scene with all the depth of a kid smashing action figures together. Everyone gets maybe one or two lines, with no opportunity for character work. Power Man get a cool moment, but given that he's been a non-entity this entire run its hard to care. I couldn't name single characteristic of him if you paid me. The really frustrating part came at the end, when Ms. Marvel has a breakdown related to the terrible One More Day rehash from earlier in the run. This plot has gone absolutely nowhere and has only made everyone involved miserable. Reading it has been painful, and now that Ms. Marvel is leaving the team, half the original team is now gone. This has been 7 issues of misery. Characters have made no progress and have just had breakdowns and arguments. Its almost as if Jim Zub was deliberately ruining the Champions as a team to make way for the rumored Young Avengers relaunch. Its no wonder this series has gotten canceled. Its truly a shame that without this team, all of Marvel's younger heroes are going to be banished to comic limbo.

A Shaggy Dog story of an issue. First few pages are yet another character having an emotional breakdown, with Ms. Marvel in tears and leaving the team. Viv randomly starts talking to an alter-ego personality, which is a plot point that last was mentioned more than a year ago. I had forgotten that was even a thing. The remainder of the issue is Sam with the crazy villain girl trying to steal his helmet back. The humor in these scenes doesn't work at all, and the entire plot of Sam getting his powers back is a huge mess. There are a million ways this could have been done, like Sam working with his actual friends to get it back, or proving himself to the Nova's that he deserves his helmet. Instead, he teams up with a psycho, attacks dozens of space cops and seemingly gets the man in charge killed. And in the end, his helmet wasn't even there, so this plot point was completely pointless and only served to make Sam look immature, show he makes bad decisions, make him look selfish and frankly undeserving of his powers.

Sam finally gets his powers back! He didn't do anything to deserve them or earn them back, he just attacked a Nova corp ship, then led a space psycho into attacking an Earth military facility and stole it back in the confusion. Its hard to think of a worse way this could have gone down. The B-squad Champions still barely work as a team and look pretty incompetent. Viv doesn't even get to shine as a new leader, because she's immediately taken out by some kind of shapeshifter disguised as Ironheart. Its no surprise that this is getting cancelled. Zub's incredibly bad writing has created a series where the unintentional theme has been that the Champions don't work well together, are generally immature and incompetent, make bad decisions and aren't up to the task of the stress and realities of superhero work.

The art is kind of a mess, and the issue really struggles by trying to tie together all of the plotlines from both of Iceman's series. It feels like an X-men comic with a focus on Iceman, and not a comic about Iceman, if that makes sense. Using Daken like that as a villain also felt really off. It felt like character derailment to have him mercilessly kill his sister, plus it kind of played into the whole 'evil bisexual' thing that is really tired.